Testing continues for St. Paul Green Line

Minnesota's Metropolitan Council alerted residents of St. Paul Thursday, March 13, 2014 of more testing along the soon-to-open Green Line light rail transit project, this time involving tests of audio announcements on Friday, March 14.

Crews were scheduled to test one station at a time, starting in Downtown St. Paul and progressing west towards West Bank Station, Met Council said.

"The purpose is to determine the volume levels for the speaker settings. The goal is to make the settings as close to the same level that Metro Transit uses on Blue Line stations. The levels vary by station depending on background noise. No lane closures will be needed for this work," Met Council stated.

The 11-mile Green Line, sometimes still called the Central Corridor line, is scheduled to open on June 14, 2014. The line will connect with the Metro Blue Line (Hiawatha Line) at the Downtown East Station in Minneapolis, and offer access to Northstar commuter rail service at the Target Field Station, also in Minneapolis.

The line's eastern terminus is at St. Paul's recently restored Union Depot, where Greyhound began operating on Tuesday, March 11; Greyhound earlier had balked at locating itself at the Depot, but now has joined MegaBus and Jefferson Bus Lines at the site. Amtrak's Empire Builder is expected to begin serving Union Depot sometime this year.